


somehow

by caelesalad



Category: Victorious (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26186197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caelesalad/pseuds/caelesalad
Summary: If Jade West puts down her scissors, talks about her feelings, and dyes her hair pink for you, you know she's in love with you. And Tori Vega knows that. And Tori Vega loves her back.
Relationships: Tori Vega/Jade West
Comments: 10
Kudos: 192





	somehow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aratayy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aratayy/gifts).



“I told you this wasn’t going to work!" Tori exclaims, flopping back down on the couch and sneaking a peek at Jade, who was sitting at the far end of it, knees drawn to her chest and a cascade of blue and black waves tumbling down the side of her face.

“Who said this wasn’t working?” She retorts, but a lot of her usual venom has left her tone, leaving her sounding more defensive than angry.

“Well, I did—“

“Exactly—“

“But you’re really not making much of an effort here!” Tori pulls herself into a sitting position, biting her lip, before scooting a little closer to Jade. “Look, Jade, do you _want_ to make this work?”

“I don’t know,” she says, turning away and starting to pick at a loose string on the couch. “I don’t know what’s even going on here, how do you expect me to know whether I—I want it or not?”

Tori sighs, leaning over to brush her hair out of her face. “Look, if we mess this up—if you decide to get back together with Beck, if I end up falling for, who knows, _Robbie_ —“ Jade makes a disgusted face, like _couldn’t you have thought of someone better?_ “—that’s okay. But we’re going to try." Tori pauses. "Aren’t we?”

Jade stubbornly refuses to look at her, instead having pulled out her scissors (the pair Cat had given her for Christmas from _The Scissoring_ —gosh, were they sharp) and slicing away bits of the string, letting the pieces fall to the floor.

“ _Jade_. You know I hate vacuum cleaning.”

“Yes I do,” she replies, cutting it up into even smaller pieces.

Tori groans, dragging her fingers through her hair. “Okay, here’s an idea. How about we take that away and…” she reaches over, gently tugging the scissors loose from Jade’s grip. To her surprise, she complies—and pulls out another pair from the waistband of her black skirt.

“You have _got_ to be kidding me,” Tori mutters. “Jade, give me those stupid scissors and talk to me.”

“No.” She picks up a piece of paper from the coffee table and snorts. “Tori Vega, geography, C+. It sounds like you could use some improvement here.” She notes, before proceeding to slash it into tiny scraps of paper while Tori narrows her eyes at her. She then dumps them in Tori’s hands like they were colorful confetti, and closes her fingers around it, smiling sweetly. “There. So much better.”

Tori glares at her, deciding not to tell her that she had, in fact, been planning on throwing that test in the trash lest her parents see it. (Then again, not that her mom would care. She’d probably be sexting—sorry, make that _texting_ —Gary and giggling like a lovestruck teenager while eating the delicious breakfast omelets that she had never once made for her and Trina.) (She could've at least given them to recipe—but no. It was top secret.)

“Jade, listen to me before I throw this at you,” Tori says calmly.

“You wouldn't _dare_ ,” Jade snaps, but sinks back into the couch and hands her the scissors. “Just in case you think that’s it, I have more hidden in my boots,” she adds, holding up her leather-clad foot and throwing her a warning look.

Tori inches slightly away from her, casting the shoes a wary look, before focusing her attention back on the scowling girl on her couch. “Okay, Jade, let’s talk." She clears her throat. "What happened last Friday?”

“We sang together.” She says, staring straight ahead at the blank TV screen.

“After that.”

“We chased Sinjin and Burf until they stopped and told us if we didn’t stop, they were going to pee in their pants and we’d have to witness it.” She makes a face. “Although we did end up witnessing it, which was, I swear—“

“After that!”

“I dropped you off at home.” She says simply, tugging at her locks.

“No, no _before_ that.”

“We sent Sikowitz a message saying that we’d completed our task and that he might want to pick the two idiots up so that they didn’t start bawling on the streets like the two big babies they were?”

Tori pinches the bridge of her nose, shaking her head in frustration.“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Frankly, I don’t.” Jade says, getting up from the couch and stretching her arms, yawning. “Boy, I’m getting sleepy. I think I might need to go home soon. Or, you know, now.”

Tori wonders how such a wonderful singer could be such a horrible actress. “You told me yesterday that you only slept twelve hours. A week.”

“Yes, well, I’ve decided that more sleep might help with uh… my anger issues.” She lifts her chin defiantly.

Tori raises her eyebrows. “So you admit you have anger issues?”

“ _No!_ ” She shouts, making Tori wince, and mutters, “People just… make me mad easily.”

“Same thing,” she dismisses, before saying quickly, hastily, “I’m talking about the kiss.”

Jade’s silent for a few moments, that Tori wonders if she’ll just completely ignore what she just said, take her scissors and march out the door, but then she opens her mouth, and her voice is… hesitant. “Do you… want to pretend it never happened?”

“Is that what you want?” Tori asks, trying not to let the hurt creep into her voice.

Another couple beats skip by, in which Tori’s heartbeat is so loud in her ears it may as well be a full-blown earthquake raging in her ribcage.

“No,” Jade says, and it’s not a whisper and it’s not _not_ a whisper, just barely above it. Tori doesn’t recognize what’s so strange, what’s so unfamiliar about her tone, until she realizes that she’s being honest, but not in the way she's used to. Not in the way she calls out insults with her hands cupped around her mouth, or snort and deliver sarcastic remarks you didn’t realize the true meaning of until a few moments later, long after she’d disappeared, or hands backhanded compliments around like it was her job, shrugging and sipping her coffee and grinning that evil cat-like grin that was stupid and annoying and kind of—okay, extremely—endearing. Right now, she was being honest in a way that was vulnerable, in a way that told Tori she trusted her, that she chose to trust her, and, of course, that she would be secretly murdered without a clue—probably and definitely with a pair of extra-sharp scissors—if she ever broke that trust.

It was amazing.

“Me neither,” Tori says, and takes a few tentative steps, closing the distance between them. Jade looks up, her pale cheeks stained with pink and red like one of those Russian nesting dolls, her blue eyes worried and hopeful—and Tori coughs.

“What?” Jade snaps.

“It’s just—you look—“ she snorts, holding her fist up to her face to hide her smile, “—ridiculous.”

“ _Oh._ “ She says in that signature ways of hers, her tone menacing, before pouncing on Tori and prying her hand open, and gleefully throwing all the geography confetti at her, the both of them shrieking wildly. Tori laughs and yells as she tries to escape Jade’s clutches but keeps failing, and Jade, smirking, pins her down as the shreds of paper rain over them, reminding them both of Cat’s crazy snow-making machine as they collapse back on the couch, panting. Jade’s hands are still closed around Tori’s wrists, and as she slowly takes them back, Tori says slowly, the corner of her lip twitching, “You know, I don’t think we’ll have that much trouble playing husband and wife after all.”

Jade’s eyes glint mischievously as she nods. “Yeah, maybe not.”

“Sikowitz would be thrilled.” Tori’s heart hums in her throat. “Hey, Jade?”

“What?”

“Thanks for uh—thanks.”

“I accept your expression of gratitude,” she replies matter-of-factly, picking at her peeling jet-black nail polish.

Tori’s mouth falls open. “That’s not how it works! You’re supposed to say ‘you’re welcome’!”

“Oh, Vega.” Jade shakes her head at her in a maddeningly condescending way. “When have I _ever_ done what I was supposed to do?”

Tori rolls her eyes. “Wow, Jade, I’m so proud of you for never following instructions and breaking all the rules you could possibly find.”

Jade curtsies. “Why, thank you.”

“Hey, Jade?” Tori cocks her head and looks at her. “What do you think about dyeing your hair pink?”

Jade glances down at the ground and back up, a wide, overly cheerful smile plastered on her face. “Sounds like a great idea. Hey, Tori?”

“Yeah…?” She says, apprehensive of her sudden change in attitude.

“What do you think about shaving off your hair and throwing yourself down a cliff?”

Tori sighs, and Jade, in all her smug, pompous glory, settles next to her on the couch, and Tori leans her head against Jade’s shoulder, feeling warm and soft and fuzzy and all the adjectives that were distinctly un-Jade. She lets out a breath, her eyes fluttering closed, until Jade says quietly, leaning down to retrieve her scissors from the floor, “Don’t blame me if you wake up and find yourself with no hair.”

# ♡

“You know that the only reason I’m not strangling you with my bare hands this instant is because you’re munching on Cheez-Its right now and I can’t stand the mere sight of them, right?”

Tori rolls her eyes. “Yes, yes, I guess I’ll just have to keep eating them for the rest of my life if I want to live.”

“Yup.” Jade glances over at the packet she’s holding and makes a face. “Seriously, though, that shit is horrible. You have no taste at _all_.”

Tori gives her a slow look. “Clearly.”

“ _Hey!_ “

“ _Hey!_ “ She mimics, lobbing a cracker at Jade’s face, which she dodges with startling speed before throwing back at her.

“Ew, now I need to go wash my hands before my hands start smelling like months-old cheese.” She gets up from where she was sprawled on Tori’s bed and starts making her way out, holding up her hands like they were infected.

“Oh, Trina’s using the bathroom, and she used the other bathroom yesterday to shave her legs,” Tori calls out, and Jade stops in her tracks to glare at her, before returning to her spot at the foot of the bed, her feet dangling over one edge and her head over the other. She stretches out her arms and tries to touch the floor.

“And that is why I would _never_ want a sibling, even it means having a built-in person to torture,” she grumbles, and Tori sighs.

“You need help.”

“No, what I need is a tissue.” Her eyes land on the box on the shelf behind Tori, and extends a hand. “Gimme.”

Tori, complaining about how she Jade couldn’t seem to do anything by herself (then shutting up when Jade threatens to stop giving her rides to school—she simply could not handle any more of Trina's spontaneous singing sessions in the car), grabs a box of tissues and hands it to her. She wipes her fingers meticulously, much to Tori’s amusement, before bunching it up into a ball and hurling it at the trash can across the room, crowing when it falls neatly into it.

“I knew I should’ve accepted the offer to become a basketball player,” she says smugly, and Tori frowns.

“When exactly did that happen again?”

Jade sniffs, and says, in a small voice, “Second grade.” Tori snorts, before popping the last Cheez-It into her mouth and standing up to throw it in the trash. She’s about to hop onto the bed next to Jade when she holds up a hand.

“Uh-uh-uh, you’ve got to wipe those dirty fingers before coming onto this sacred place, where no repulsive smells including, but not limited to, Cheez-Its, are allowed.”

Tori narrows her eyes. “You do realize that this is _my_ bed, right?”

She shrugs in response, and Tori reluctantly pulls out a tissue to wipe her hands before jumping on the bed, causing Jade to nearly slide off.

“Watch it!” She yells, and Tori gives it a few extra bounces to irritate her even more, grinning.

“Ugh, you’re so annoying.”

“Why, thank you.” She rolls over so that Jade’s face is almost directly underneath hers, and propping herself up on her elbows, lifts a strand of pink hair before letting it fall. “So, how are you liking your new hair, Miss Prissy Pink Princess?”

“It’s not… completely awful.” She admits.

“What’s that? You’re so glad I convinced you to try it? Oh, I know, Jade, you totally love me.”

“My hair cuticles certainly don’t.”

Tori crosses her arms, about to reply grumpily, when she pauses, a smile spreading across her face. “So does that mean you love me?”

“What?” She scoffs. “No.”

“Aww, look at you, you’re blushing!”

“It’s just because my head it upside down!” She snaps. “The blood rushing to my head has everything to do with gravity and _nothing_ to do with you.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“ _Reaalllly?_ “ Tori asks again, stretching out the word.

She misses a beat. “No.”

Tori grins, lying back down. “Me too.”

“I didn’t even say anything.” Jade points out, dragging herself back up so that she isn’t mere moments from falling off the bed.

“Well, you don’t need to.”

Jade’s hand taps against Tori’s, and Tori turns around to face her again. Jade smiles, uneven and unsure and uncertain, and Tori smiles back, nudging her encouragingly.

“Me too. I mean… I love you. Too.” She says, then leans forward the slightest bit, and so does Tori, and somehow, they meet each other halfway.

Somehow, they met each other, and somehow, they fell in love.

**Author's Note:**

> I told you to learn more about Victorious but sadly, you didn't listen.  
> Here's to more predictable surprises and Houseparty streaks and confusing Snapchat conversations and writing challenges. Thanks always, and yes, you're required to reply with you're welcome.


End file.
